NAN A. S. HAYWORTH: “Mr. Chairman, I hear some encouraging notions from the other side, but silent assent is not enough, because, you see…”

“Mr. Chairman, I hear some encouraging notions from the other side, but silent assent is not enough, because, you see, despite the talk of soft money, hard money and all the different slang that is bandied about this House, there is a clear and explicit problem. Our British cousins have an expression for it. It is called ``being too clever by half.'' What we have seen in this White House is nothing short of deliberate and despicable and dishonest, for the Vice President of the United States to have the audacity to stand in front of the Nation's press corps and say ``my legal counsel informs me there is no controlling legal authority,'' in the wake of a memo from the former White House counsel, Judge Abner Mikva, who at the time precisely warned administration personnel of the real problems inherent in violating the Pendleton Act, an act that was strengthened, my colleagues, in the Carter administration in 1979. But because there are those who attempt to be too clever by half to the extent that they open fund-raising to the likes of Chinese arms merchants and other despicable characters, we must come to this floor now in this vehicle to articulate that those who would seek to be clever and surreptitious and gain the system again will be given no quarter. That is why this amendment is so vitally important.”